


things we lost in the fire

by malreves



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Character Study, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route Spoilers, M/M, Read at Your Own Risk, much like everything else i have ever written it is sad as fuck my dudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 20:49:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20895899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malreves/pseuds/malreves
Summary: It had always been a choice, to go this route rather than the other. To choose this banner, rather than his own. To give up his childhood for a chance at a future. But now that the war was over, there was nothing left for him to salvage amongst the ruins.





	things we lost in the fire

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [this comic](https://twitter.com/vwyn19/status/1179653670415110144), with some major deviations

It had always been a choice, to go this route rather than the other. To choose this banner, rather than his own. To give up his childhood for a chance at a future. But now that the war was over, there was nothing left for him to salvage amongst the ruins. 

\--

The field was a mess of gore and mutilation. Bodies he couldn’t, wouldn’t recognize strewn about, dying and dead at the hands of the Black Eagles Strike Force, laying a grim path of destruction to Dimitri at the other end of the field. Felix had his orders to stay close to Petra, mounted on her pegasus and glorious with her silver bow on the battlefield, he was to help keep the princess of Brigid safe amidst the chaos. As they made their way closer and closer to the front, Felix began to recognize the faces of his old friends that stood before him. The horrified look of realization that captured Igrid’s face, before she toppled from the back of her pegasus, body a pile of bones and blood on the ground before he could say a word for her, warn her to run, that Edelgard would not rest until the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus from the map and from this world. There would be no mercy, not now, not anymore. 

She was not kind, but she was justice, and she knew that there would be no peace to her reign if anyone stood to oppose it after the war, so where she went, the ground was razed and her banner was hung triumphant. There wasn’t time to retreat to safety anymore, to hide from this war; it had found them at their doorstep. 

And Felix had made his choice, many, many moons ago, when he knew Dimitri no longer held his trust, that he could no longer follow a mad king into battle, and lay down his life for him. There were things Felix regretted, but casting off Dimitri’s insanity would never be one. 

\--

He rarely saw people he knew anymore, travelling far past the continent on expeditions offered to him if only to find a moment’s peace amongst his thoughts through the mindless killing of a hired sword. He had nothing left for him in Fóldan, nothing to keep him there. Edelgard had offered him a position as Master of the Sword but he couldn’t handle the people, the relief on their faces, the happiness at being with one another that he would never have. There were marriages and celebrations after the war, a crowning of a new empress alongside Edelgard, a new cabinet, a new Queen of Brigid. There was so much happiness that sprouted from the death and decay that war had brought them, but the bitterness he still held made it near impossible to enjoy it all. So he left. 

\--

The battle had very nearly drawn to an end when he spotted him: bloody and covered in dirt, still somehow mounted on his horse, armor dented and missing in places, but unmistakably Sylvain. 

Felix stopped short, lowering his sword and his shield, eyes wide open in shock. 

\--

Felix never truly considered he might have to fight his childhood friend to the death, the one who he spent so many summers with, hiding in the woods behind his father’s home, sneaking pastries at balls they were required to attend. Hiding in the spaces were no one would find them, save for each other, pressing moments to memory in the luxury of childhood. They had slept in the same bed, crammed into spaces much to small for their long limbs, and taught each other how to fight. Their sparring turned to boyish wrestling at a moment’s notice, and Felix could still recall the first time he bested Sylvain in a fight, pinning both shoulders to the ground with a triumphant smile. They had been best friends, and then, for barely a summer, they had been more. There had been soft kisses and tangled sheets and a hesitance that hadn’t been there since their first days as friends. A firmer touch, a more wary approach to sparring. They took their time learning each other, knowing each other. For a summer, they existed in a sphere of their own, and then the war had come and everything fell apart. 

Felix had left then, understanding that this war would grow to be far greater than he knew, or could even begin to imagine, understanding that he would not live to see the end of it from where he stood. So he made the fateful decision to find the Professor and ask to be placed in her class, found a place in Edelgard’s army and made himself as much of a home there as he could bear. He avoided Sylvain as best he could, choosing to, instead, become better at what he was already known for being the best at: he trained with Shamir, and when she was unavailable, with the Professor, who was proving to be an adversary he was relieved to not have to meet on the battlefield. He strode past Dimitri without acknowledging his former Prince, ignoring the way Dimitri’s face hardened with every “hello” gone unnoticed. 

Sylvain had cornered him one day during the Great Wyvern Moon, when Felix was still in his room dressing for the day and demanded to know what had happened, why was Felix avoiding him, what had he done?

“I haven’t spoken to a girl in months, not since–” Sylvain’s voice broke, and he ran his hands through his already disheveled hair in a frustrated manner. “Please, Fe, tell me what I did wrong? Tell me so I can fix it?” 

Felix had bitten his tongue and looked away from the mess of a man standing before him, eyes red and tears making thick tracks across his cheeks. His coat was hastily buttoned over his shirt, and he was clearly missing a sock from where Felix stood looking at him; Sylvain was too vain to ever present himself in such a way to someone. 

“Please, Fe,” Sylvain’s voice had caught. “Please, tell me what I did?” 

Felix had shut his eyes and took a deep breath, steeling himself for what he was going to say, for how he was going to break Sylvain’s heart. 

“It is so hard to understand that I just don’t want to be around you? You’re pathetic and annoying, why would I ever want to waste any of my time with you?” Felix had replied, pushing past Sylvain and out of his room without a backward glance. 

\--

Sylvain had spotted him as well, pushing his hair, matted with blood, away from his face for a better look. The unmistakable look of absolute panic that took over his face left Felix without the breath in his lungs. They were only a short distance from each other, Sylvain being one of the last lines of defense between Edelgard and Dimitri, but she had blown past him and left him barely still standing on his horse, just a chest plate and greaves still pressed to his body, hanging by the thinnest straps of leather. 

At the sight of Felix, Sylvain stopped and dismounted his horse. The panic had fully settled on him now and he ran in earnest towards Felix, the love he hadn’t seen in years, now facing him bloodied on a battlefield. 

“Felix!” Sylvain shouted, moving as fast as he could, despite his injuries. “Felix!” 

But as he took his next step, Petra let her arrow loose, and it found its home in Sylvain’s shoulder as he fell to his knees. 

The exhalation that left Felix was something inhuman and composed entirely of pain. There was Sylvain, slumped in the muck of the battlefield, wheezing desperately against the pain in his shoulder. 

“He was to be attacking you.” Petra called from behind him, and Felix swallowed hard. 

“I’ll handle it,” he called back. “Go on ahead to Lady Edelgard.” 

Petra nodded and continued her pursuit past Sylvain’s barely upright body. 

Felix made his way to Sylvain then, dropping down to his knees in front of his former lover’s body. 

“Sylvain,” he began, voice weak with strain. His hands went to Sylvain’s shoulders, to help hold him upright. There was blood everywhere, and it left Felix’s hands a warm, sticky mess, the air thick with the scent of iron. 

Sylvain looked up at him, tears shining gently in his eyes. “Hey Fe, remember when we were kids and we made a promise about dying together?” His voice was soft, almost imperceptible amidst the roar of the battlefield. 

“Sylvain,” Felix tried again, but found himself at a loss for words.

“Well it looks like I’m going to be the one dying first.” Sylvain tried for a chuckle, but all that came out was a sharp wheeze of breath from the pain radiating from his shoulder. Felix moved to remove the arrow, but Sylvain shook his head. 

“Would you do the honors, Fe? Make it quick?”

Felix choked in shock, unable to truly process what it was that Sylvain was asking from him. 

“Please, Fe? It hurts.” Sylvain closed his eyes, leaning his bloody forehead against Felix’s, the fight leaving him. 

Felix reached for the dagger strapped to his belt, before pushing aside the metal plate that was so ineffectively protecting Sylvain’s chest. He found the place, right between Sylvain’s ribs, that would be the quickest and easiest way to go, and poised the blade at the ready. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. 

“I love y–” Sylvain started, but he plunged the knife in. 

\--

There were days, even now, where Felix awoke to the memory of Sylvain’s blood pooling in his hands, across his arms. He still chokes on it in his dreams when they come to him, the way the life slipped through his fingers and was gone in an instant, because of him. 

They were his burden to bear.

\--

When he arose from where Sylvain’s lifeless body lay in the mud, he saw it was at last time for Edelgard to meet her match, though he knew she was leagues ahead of what Dimitri believed himself to be capable of. Dimitri never stood a chance, not against the lady and her axe. But still, he had been his prince once, it would be only fitting for Felix to be there for his death, too. So he ran, moved as quickly as he could amongst the bodies of his former classmates, ignoring the way Mercedes neck had been twisted in an unnatural angle from whoever had bested her in a fight, the way that Dedue’s body, no longer recognizable, lay in thick pieces of monster limbs and torso across the battlefield before his prince. Pegasus horses lay straining under the bodies of their dead riders, soldiers face down in the mud, blood pooling around them. This was a field of nightmares that Felix crossed as he made his way to Dimitri, only stopping before Edelgard as she blocked a threateningly close cut of his lance. 

“Felix!” Dimitri called, but Felix ignored him, taking a defensive stance once more in front of Petra, a few paces away. 

“Felix, would you leave me here, to die at the hands of this monster?” He called again, roughly sidestepping a particularly heavy swing of Aymr. Felix grit his teeth. 

“The only monster here is you!” Felix called back, watching Edelgard expertly leap from the edge of Dimitri’s lance. 

“From, the depths of hell, you will regret tainting the land of Faerghus! You killed Rodrigue… your own father, Felix!” Dimitri roared, attempting to move past Edelgard to Felix, but she would have none of it; she protected her own. 

Felix threw his shield in front of Edelgard, catching the tip of Dimitri’s lance and shoving it from where the blow would have landed. 

"I said I'd cut down anyone who stood in my way. Even my father. Even my friends." His voice was bitter as he held his sword up beside Edelgard, feet planted firmly on the ground, and he watched the understanding settle in Dimitri’s eye. 

“Enough!” Edelgard’s voice rang clear as she took a step towards Dimitri, Aymr cleanly blocking his next blow. 

They spun in a close dance of death, one very nearly grazing the other, though not quite reaching, as Petra fired arrow after arrow that lodged itself into armor Dimitri wore under his furred hood. Finally, Edelgard gained the upper hand, cutting him off at his knees and watching him fall prostrate before her. 

“Your obsession with me ends today,” her axe swung a clear arc towards Dimitri, and buried itself in the center of his chest. 

\--

It had always been a choice, but it had never felt quite so hollow. 


End file.
